


See

by Cephy



Category: Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Multi, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-04
Updated: 2007-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephy/pseuds/Cephy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because no one can be that unobservant forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See

Richard White remembered the first time he saw Superman. _Really_ saw him, that is-- not just on the cover of some magazine or in that folder Lois kept in her desk, the one she probably doesn't know he found. Those things he could almost disregard, like Superman was some Hollywood star or a character from a movie-- someone distant, not fully real, certainly without any effect on his own life.

No, the first time Richard really saw Superman was when he was dangling over heaving ocean waves and the debris of a ship, and suddenly the man was impossible to ignore. No longer some distant figurehead but _right there_, hanging in the air above him in a way that by all rights should have been impossible. Everything _about _him should have been impossible, because no one could really be all the things that Superman was, strong and selfless and good. But his hand was warm and he wasn't letting go, and his eyes never lost that look of concern the entire time.

It was in that moment that Superman became real for Richard White, a living being and not an idea. And it was also in that moment that Richard might have given up, just a little. Because how could anyone possibly compete against _that_?

The second time Richard saw Superman, he was pulling the man out of the ocean with a bleeding hole in his side. And he surprised himself by just how _angry _he got at that sight. He'd expected, with the dark, guilty part of himself, to feel some kind of satisfaction, of vindication-- but seeing the hero brought so low just felt _wrong._ When Superman flew out the door mere moments later, looking tired and hurting and resigned, Richard had to restrain the urge to call him back, to yell at Lois to keep him from leaving, however impossible that might be.

He would try to tell himself later that it was just a natural human instinct, that need to protect the weak and wounded. But a man who could lift an entire island into space couldn't be considered _weak_. And if Richard were forced to be honest with himself, he knew that he couldn't blame Lois anymore for still being smitten by the Man of Steel. Really, how could anyone be anything but?

The third time Richard saw Superman, it wasn't Superman he saw at all. He was never sure, after, just what it was that gave Clark away, maybe a reflex that was just a little too fast, maybe one too many convenient disappearances. Maybe just the fact that he'd never really known Clark, _before_, and thus didn't have quite the same blindness of familiarity.

He didn't say anything for the longest time, not to Lois, not to Clark himself. Instead he watched, seeing a masterful performance carried out before him with the audience completely oblivious to it all. It was a humbling experience. Superman could have had anything in the world for his asking, could have taken anything in the world that he wanted. And yet he stumbled around a news room and let everyone underestimate him, took Lois' disregard and Perry's heavy-handed direction and kept smiling that awkward little smile. Richard wasn't sure he could do the same, in that situation.

In those months of watching, Superman slowly became an idea again, while the reality walked before him in an ill-fitting suit and thick glasses.

The fourth time Richard really saw Superman, it felt like they were all trembling on the edge of something, some paradigm shift that would take the world around them and change it beyond recognition. So much had happened in the time since-- telling Lois, then telling her again and again until she was convinced it was the truth, and then the same thing again in reverse with his son, god, his _son_\-- and then the long nights in the dark, talking, saying things and asking things and admitting things that never would have seen the light of day.

And all the memories of before blurred together: calm confidence and pained determination and quiet longing all twisted up into one person sitting on a couch and reaching in muted panic for the pair of glasses that had just been taken away. Clark looked like he was about to bolt-- and wasn't _that_ a laugh, the Man of Steel running away from two thirty-something pencil-pushers and a seven year old boy.

But it wasn't really the Man of Steel sitting on the couch there, was it? And it wasn't Clark, either, because they'd just taken _Clark _away by removing the glasses. It was a new person entirely looking at them with wary resignation, someone without the awkward animation of Clark but also lacking the assurance that was so characteristic of Superman. If anything, he reminded Richard of the wounded man in the airplane, looking weary and _human _and very much alone.

And then Jason came over and crawled into his lap, looking up with solemn eyes, and Clark's face went startled even as his hands came up automatically to steady the boy in place. Richard felt his own smile, saw Lois' out of the corner of his eye, saw Clark's expression go bewildered then stunned and then so briefly _longing _before closing down again.

He excused himself shortly after, moving with polite determination towards the door despite all of their offers to the contrary. Richard watched him through the window, watched him walk down the drive and up the road, and then he turned to watch the sky instead. If a figure flew out of the shadows there, Richard didn't see it.

But the next day at the office, Clark came by his desk with a mug of coffee and a faintly hopeful look, and didn't bump into a single wastebasket on his way back across the bullpen. Richard followed with his eyes as Clark swung wide and dropped another mug on Lois' desk, not ducking away when she looked up and smiled at him.

Richard never really saw _Superman _again.


End file.
